Stung Maze Brain Coral??? Will it live???

[Reefier]

Hi everyone! New here would love to learn more and really need help. Recently I just bought what I was told was a Maze Brain. It has been stung by another coral of some sort while in the shops care. I purchased it for $25 and was told that it would heal and be ok or they would cut off the dead piece for me right then. I said no to the cutting because I asked them if it would live either way and the guy told me yes and it might even try to grow back over the old dead skeleton. Is this true or did I just buy a lost cause? What, if anything could I do to reverse this? The pic on the left was taken last night at around 5 pm. The middle was taken at around 11.30 pm and the last was taken today at 5 pm. Thanks for any help and advice I can get.

 

[BCT182]

First off, hows the quality of your water?

 

[BCT182]

ALSO WELCOME to Reef Frontiers!

 

[Reefier]

Maze Brain Stung!!!

Thanks for the welcome. All water param. Are normal for what I can test for. Ph 8.6
Trites. 0
Trates. >20 ppm
Ammonia. 0
Spec. Grav. 1.024

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

Nitrates greater than 20? Does that mean 40? 100? 200? If you can lower those nitrates, you'll be better off in the long run.

But to your original question, I think you got a pretty good deal for $25. With good water quality, it should heal up fine on its own. I don't see anything that looks too bad - in fact if you wouldn't have said it was stung, I wouldn't have known it. Moderate lighting, low to moderate flow, and a little TLC... and it should be growing around the edges for you within a couple months.

[Edit: Ooooo... I just looked at the picture again. What I thought was a shadow in the picture I now see is the affected area. Need to remember to let the coffee kick in before typing! OK... so that's a pretty good size area that's not looking too good. Most likely the die off will stop in that area soon. I doubt you'll lose the entire colony, but it will take a while for it to recover. Still think it was a good gamble for the $.]

 

[estanoche]

Just watch the recession line, and if it starts to just keep going farther and farther into the living area you will want to just cut the bad stuff off and start new... Sometimes all that dead and deteriorating tissue will just spread, and cause an infection that many call "brown jelly"....

Keep it clean and don't let anything pick at it. And if it starts to spread, find a friend with a tile saw and go to town, better to have half than none

 

[Ed Hahn]

First thing I see is specific gravity at 1.024. Most salts are designed to work at 1.026. If you want small changes and things to balance out you need to run salt specific gravity the way its designed by manufacturer.

If I had a LPS that was stung by a coral. I would take water from tank put it in a container big enough to submerge coral. I would add a drop of Lugols Iodine in the container and let it sit for a few minutes, maybe use turkey baster to circulate water all over coral. After a few minutes, I would put coral back into spot where it was orignally located. I have used this for practice before with some success. I wish you the best of luck on keeping him healthy.

Ed

 

[Darthv247]

looks like the bottom portion has been dead awhile IMO it already has coraline etc growing on it. above that portion looks to be necrotic flesh ? might be safest to just cut it but it very well could fight it off on its own. or are we talking about the more recent looking bleached portion on the side? its def in pretty rough shape but worth a shot to get er back.